David Quattromani is the owner of this 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A with its orange engine, below.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

JAMESTOWN

You might be excused in thinking that David Quattromani was under the influence of LSD when he painted his 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A lime green with black hood and trim and the motor bright orange.

But Sub Lime was one of a series of “high impact” colors that Chrysler offered in the early 1970s. Others included Bahama Yellow (sand), Go-Mango (light orange), Green Go, Hemi Orange, Panther Pink, Plum Crazy (purple) and Top Banana (yellow).

(Chrysler’s sister muscle car, the Plymouth Barracuda, offered the same colors under equally psychedelic names: Lime Light, Butterscotch, Vitamin C, Sassy Grass, Tor-Red, Moulin Rouge, In-Violet and Lemon Twist respectively.)

Indeed, Quattromani said he restored his V-8, rear-wheel muscle car to be correct in all its details.

“It’s how you would buy it in 1970,” he said in a recent interview. “Chrysler was way over the top back then.”

Including the orange engine?

“All 340 [engines] were orange from 1968 to 1971,” he said. “No matter what color your car was, all 340s were orange.”

Quattromani has owned the car since 1981. He said he had been looking in vain for a 1970 Plymouth AAR ’Cuda and was not interested in the Challenger when he first saw it in Westerly sitting on blocks with its engine and transmission removed.

“I wasn’t crazy for the lime green,” he said.

But a year later, the owner’s former girlfriend called him to say she had inherited the car and was he still interested? He was and they agreed on $2,500 (it was about $4,000 new) including the removed engine and transmission.

He brought it back to Jamestown and worked on it, rebuilding the engine and transmission (with help), patching up the body and refurbishing the interior.

“What I basically did was take it apart and put it back together,” he said.

Quattromani said he used the car as a daily driver and in 1984 had Billy Grimes of Grimes Auto Body in Carolina repaint it. He then continued to use it, including driving it to Columbus, Ohio, in 1985 for the Mopar (short for Motor Parts and slang for Chrysler) Nationals where he took third place.

However, the initial restoration was starting showing through as the years went by.

“We’re chasing rust here, you need a new fender,” he said Grimes told him. “[The rust] is in here and it’s going to stay here.”

He agreed to leave the car with Grimes in 1994 and there it sat for 10 years as he became involved in other things.

Finally Grimes said, “You know we got to get this done,” and they worked on a full restoration that was completed in 2004.

“I’d been gleaning parts,” he said. “A little bit at a time.”

A lifelong Jamestown resident, Quattromani, an affable 56, started out working on a farm on the island but turned to a career in caregiving with the state. He retired in 2004 as a program aide for Rhode Island Community Living and Support (RICLAS), which provides services to people with developmental disabilities.

His Challenger was built as a so-called racing homologation, or street version, of the Dodge Challenger T/A (Trans Am) that was raced by Sam Posey in the Sports Car Club of America’s (SCCA) Trans American Sedan Championship in 1970.

“It was a street version [that was produced] in order to campaign [the racing version] in the SCCA Trans Am,” Quattromani said. (The 1970 Plymouth ’Cuda AAR (All American Racer) was also a racing homologation.)

However, the car did not compete well in a year that marked a high point in U.S. road racing as AMC, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors muscle cars fought for supremacy in the SCCA’s over 2-liter category.

As it turned out, it was its only year of racing. The era of the muscle car was winding down due to regulations focusing on pollution and safety, and Chrysler, Ford and GM all pulled out of SCCA racing in 1971.

“People were getting wrapped around telephone poles and trees,” said Quattromani.

However, he said Sam Posey signed the underside of his trunk lid in 2005 when he ran into him at the All-Chrysler Nationals in Carlisle, Penn.

Quattromani said only 2,500 of the cars were made, of which some 1,334 survive. Of those, only 58 known are Sub Lime, according to the Registry of Trans Ams.

The license plate reads SIX PAK which refers to the trio of two-barrel carburetors that resulted in the engine being nicknamed the 340 Six Pack. The engine was rated at 290 horsepower, but Quattromani figured it was more like 335 hp.

The engine is also distinguished by an enormous air filter that is directly connected to the air scoop on top of the fiberglass hood — held down with pins and lanyards — which Quattromani said was based on the air scoop on the underside of the P-51 Mustang fighter plane.

“It’s a real scoop,” he said. “The cold air is pushed right in.”

Other details include the front chin spoiler and the rear ducktail spoiler, rear tires that are larger than the front ones, which gives the car a nose-down “Daytona rake” and chrome side exhausts that end in a wide “megaphone.”

The car is a hardtop convertible with no center pillar and has the original fake wood plastic steering wheel and a pistol-grip gear shifter.

“This is a fun car,” he said, noting that he’d once had it “north of 120 [mph].” “I didn’t bury the speedometer, which goes out to 150 [mph],” he added.

“People think I’m crazy for driving it,” he said. “But I’m not saving it for the next guy.”

Noting his credo was to “insure heavily and drive carefully,” he said he’d put more than 60,000 miles on the car, including turns at Watkins Glen and the Chrysler Proving Grounds, Chelsea, Mich.

“I couldn’t make those memories by storing it here,” he said. “The garage could burn down and what have you got?”

Auto Biography tells an interesting story about a car and its driver. If you think you have a newsworthy story to tell about your car, write to Auto Biography, Features Department, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St. Providence RI 02902 or e-mail projocars@projo.com. Be sure to put “Auto Biography” in the subject field.

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